Lola

"Since her creative partnership with veteran songwriter Chip Taylor, the Austin, Texas singer and fiddler has grown in sophistication over the course of five solo albums. On Lola she foregrounds her Tex-Mex heritage, mixing Mexican classics from her childhood with self-written songs in Spanish and English. Rodriguez gets the blend right with an all-star band led by Bill Frisell's deft, dreamy guitar ... Rodriguez's vocals (less drawling than usual) and classically tinged fiddle are, as usual, sweet".

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"Carrie Rodriguez is (...) at her best when she explores her Mexican roots ... ["Lola" is] a mix of classic Mexican songs, many slow and unashamedly emotional, and her own compositions, which are often in the ranchera tradition. The opener, Perfidia, shows how well Rodriguez has succeeded. She revives this tuneful, well-worn song of betrayal with pained, attacking vocals, helped by strong harmony work by Raul Malo and glorious twanging guitar by the great Bill Frisell ... Rodriguez's compositions have a dash of country-blues and include a tribute to the ranchera star Lola Beltrán. This is a fresh, confident set".

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"No album in Carrie Rodriguez's ample catalog better represents her as an artist than "Lola" (...), a set of originals and thoroughly reimagined standards by Mexican composers in English, Spanish, and Spanglish ... Rodriguez has been hinting at the ambition displayed on "Lola" for some time. What's surprising is how a record of such scope and imagination can be rendered so intimately and elegantly".

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"Texas-born-and-bred Rodriguez is no newcomer (this is her eigth album, and she first came to attention working with Chip Taylor) but this goes in a different direction, a mix of the open spaces Texas country and older Mexican music, all given a distinctive sound by Rodriguez and her band, the Sacred Hearts, for a sort of 21st Century ranchera ... [Although she takes] inspiration from her great aunt, Eva Garza, who was a Chicana singing star in the 1940s (...), the album itself is completely contemporary, everything given a treatment that's simultaneously modern and timeless. Much of the credit for that goes to producer Lee Townsend and guitarist Bill Frisell, who seems to imbue everything he touches with a little twanging magic. The combination works beautifully ... It's music that bleeds and bends across the Southern border, warm, inviting, even sultry at times ... An absolute winner".